Follow Us!

Get the Guru Newsletter

The Queenis expected to make a rare public speech thanking her British and Commonwealth subjects for 63 years of support when she becomes our longest-reigning monarch on Wednesday.

Her Majesty, who had originally wanted to spend the landmark day in private, has already bowed to the clamour for a public appearance by agreeing to interrupt her holiday at Balmoral and open a railway in the Borders.

Now she is said to be contemplating going even further by speaking at the end of her journey aboard a steam train, when she would be likely to pay tribute to her great-great-grandmother Queen Victoria, the woman whose record reign she will overtake.

No one was more “Victorian” than the public Victoria, with her sincere do-goodery, lugubrious piety, conspicuous wifely devotion and imperial bombast. In private, Queen Victoria could be quite different, altogether more kittenishly charming or scabrously Hanoverian, depending on her mood.

In the eyes of her contemporaries, Victoria was the symbol of the age, sturdy as a steam engine and as solidly built as any of Eugenius Birch’s cast-iron seaside piers. Her longevity was interpreted as proof that theirs was, as she herself described it, “an epoch of progress”.

Fast forward today and Queen Elizabeth II rarely speaks in public, confining herself to set piece events such as her Christmas message, the State opening of Parliament and speeches at State banquets when she is entertaining or visiting other leaders.

The Queen, who had insisted she wanted “no fuss” to be made about her record-breaking day, will board a train at Edinburgh Waverley Station pulled by the steam locomotive Union of South Africa for the two-hour journey.

It will stop at Newtongrange in Midlothian, where the Queen will unveil a plaque, before reaching Tweedbank, where the Queen will officially open the Borders Railway, the longest domestic railway line to be built in the UK in over a century.

She will be greeted by a brass band and will unveil another plaque, at which point she may decide to speak, though it is understood that a final decision will not be made until next week.

The Zoroastrian community in the UK are marking the occasion in a very special way. ZTFE Resident Mobed at the Zoroastrian Centre Ervad Yazad T Bhadha will perform a Maachi ceremony followed by a benedictory prayer in the Setayasht Gah on Friday 11th September 2015 at 7pm.

Ervad Yazad will invoke blessings of Dadar Ahura Mazda for the well-being and to continue the peaceful and prosperous reign of Her Majesty The Queen, for the well being of HRH The Duke of Edinburgh, The Prince of Wales, Duke of Cambridge, Prince George, the Royal Family, the House of Windsor, United Kingdom and the Commonwealth.This will be followed by a Humbandagi.

Sagan-ni mithai and refreshments will be served in the Zoroastrian Centre Foyer to all the worshipers who will attend this celebratory occasion.

Those planning to attend should inform the ZTFE Secretariat via email secretary@ztfe.com or phone on 020 8866 0765 by Thursday 10th September 2015.